So what the hell do both of these shows have to do with each other? Well, simply put: they flash back to a time that would lead to something big eventually, and both could either deliver to the audience what we want, or can drag on and on and on until the gimmicks are so tired, we beg for it to be cancelled. But surprisingly, one gimmick works better than the other. Sometimes flashback shows work (“Wonder Years”, My Beloved “American Dreams”), and sometimes they don’t (“Do Over”, “That Was Then”), and both shows rely on this gimmick to spawn an entire series. With “How I Met Your Mother”, we see an old man telling his two children how he met their mom, and it’s safe to say this show has a big gimmick that will only tell how long this show will last. I mean how long will these kids sit to listen to this story? More importantly how long will the audience?<\/p>\n
Now, this show could have been funnier without the condescending Pavlovian laugh track telling the audience “This is the joke” when we can decide for ourselves just fine, and much of it didn’t particularly spark laughter from me, but the occasional smile and chortle. With the cast, our two leads are just fine and have very good chemistry, but the show asks you more to pay attention to the supporting cast. Neal Patrick Harris plays Barney, an over the top egomaniac who doesn’t have much to do here and is the resident friend, and he’s often over the top. But Jason Segel (My beloved Freaks and Geeks) and Alyson Hannigan (That show with the vampires) are entertaining as an eccentric couple who serve as a more paradoxical couple while serving as the resident goofy neighbor-like characters.<\/p>\n
In spite of its promises, this is just a routine relationship-esque sitcom that I don’t have hopes for, nor will I really expect to go beyond five episodes, but the talent is there. Meanwhile, I can safely say I’m shocked, because the better of the two pilots ended up being “Everybody Hates Chris”. Granted, I’m not a fan of Chris Rock, but this ended up being a great show. As you can guess, this is loosely based on the childhood of Chris Rock, and while I had so many doubts, it ends up being surprisingly laugh out loud funny. I’m shocked. Did I say that already? Either way, it’s a hybrid of “Wonder Years” and “Malcolm in the Middle”… no, it’s a rip-off of “Wonder Years” and “Malcolm in the Middle” with a hint of “Crooklyn” added to the mix, but Rock does manage to break free from the derivations and I was able to ignore it and focus on the great qualities.<\/p>\n
Playing Rock’s parents are Tichina Arnold (Martin), and Terry Crews (White Chicks) who give great performances, here. They’re the highlight of this show. Tichina Arnold is purely hilarious as a more lower class Jane Kaczmarek, and really gives a good performance pulling off the screaming, rabid threats, and domineering role while being able to increase the depth behind her character, meanwhile Terry Crews is the every working man dad who saves and saves and complains about wasting everything (“That’s a two dollar piece of chicken you just burnt!”), a running joke that was just hysterical and he plays off well against Arnold. Plus, it helps that the dialogue is just great.<\/p>\n
There’s just a lot to like here with the chemistry between the family being very genuine while the jokes are sometimes rapid fire and priceless. Tyler J. Williams (Bobby from “Little Bill”) is almost identical to Chris Rock, and is a great leading actor heading the show as we see life through his eyes. He deals with the normal stuff like trying to save his bus pass, and he deals with more complex issues like racism, and we even hear the N-bomb (You know what word I’m talking about) dropped by a bully. Yet in spite of the dysfunction and inherent misery in this poor family, you can tell there’s a lot of love here with great moments of affection between these characters. If this is a new show for UPN, then they’re headed for a new era of quality.<\/p>\n
“Everybody Hates Chris” premieres September 22nd on UPN, “How I Met Your Mother” premieres September 18 on CBS.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So what the hell do both of these shows have to do with each other? Well, simply put: they flash back to a time that would lead to something big eventually, and both could either deliver to the audience what we want, or can drag on and on and on until the gimmicks are so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[219,340,1132],"class_list":["post-2937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tv-tomb","tag-comedy","tag-family","tag-tv-show"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2937\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}